Pro-life leaders, pundits and bloggers are up in arms now because Republican Congresswoman Renee Ellmers — NC, (along with at least five other female Republicans,) is protesting the terms of the rape exception within the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act – H.R. 36, also known as the 20-week abortion ban. As written, the late-term abortion in the case of rape or incest is permitted “if the rape is reported any time prior to the abortion to an appropriate law enforcement agency.” To be clear, given the plain language of the legislation, there’s no time frame as to when the rape must be reported, the bill doesn’t require that the rape victim actually report the rape herself, and there’s no requirement that the reporting must be done in person. Accordingly, an abortion clinic employee could “report the rape” (wink-wink) by telephone, just seconds before the late-term abortion takes place.
This overly-permissive language certainly opens the door for late-term abortions on demand, for any reason, which is why closet pro-choicers always want a rape exception – to open the door. Women will be told to lie, just like Jane Roe (Norma McCorvey) of Roe v Wade was told by her lawyers to lie in order to obtain an abortion. In addition, there is absolutely no sense of due process involved in this death penalty decree for children conceived in rape. Can you imagine if Congress introduced a bill stating that a rapist could be put to death — just with the requirement that a rape be “reported”?! But according to the U.S. Supreme Court, rapists don’t deserve the death penalty, and even for child molesters, it’s “cruel and unusual punishment.” Yet, the Congressional GOP will summarily issue the death penalty to the innocent child. Never mind that children conceived in rape feel pain too, we can just go ahead and suffer for all they care. And such exceptions are also violative of the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection clause.But Ellmers and the other female lawmakers want the liberal reporting requirement to be completely removed. She stated that “the bill will cost the party support among millennials” and she said in an interview, “I have urged leadership to reconsider bringing it up next week . . . . We got into trouble last year, and I think we need to be careful again; we need to be smart about how we’re moving forward. . . . The first vote we take, or the second vote, or the fifth vote, shouldn’t be on an issue where we know that millennials—social issues just aren’t as important [to them].” The liberal press is all over this — saying the bill is so extreme that even pro-life Republicans can’t support it.
As a result, some pro-life bloggers have called her a “pro-choice mole,” or “a lying waste of oxygen,” and “sniveling liar,” but has she really broken any campaign promises, and how did she even get elected as a pro-life legislator? Well, she was pro-life with exceptions when she ran, so this really shouldn’t be a big shocker, and it shouldn’t come as a surprise to the groups who endorsed Ellmers that she’s now advocating according to her prior values.
On Susan B. Anthony List’s website, their endorsement of rape-exception Ellmers for Congress includes the following statement: “A new women’s movement which affirms its original pro-life roots is making its way to the House of Representatives, and Ellmers is one of its brightest new stars.” But original pro-life roots would not have included a rape exception. I’m very pro-woman, but I’d much rather see a 100% pro-life male endorsed than a rape-exception female! Other big names in pro-life circles helped get Ellmers elected as well: Wikipedia gives credit to Erick Erickson’s RedState blog, as well as Sarah Palin’s endorsement for helping to get the “previously obscure” Ellmers elected to Congress in 2010.
In the article in which Erick Erickson calls Ellmers a liar, he says, “Just as the GOP has decided to stand firm on a piece of legislation supported by +60% of the nation, she’s scared people won’t like her.” Stand firm? The bill was introduced with a rape exception! How is that standing firm? And it was done because Congressional Republican leadership were scared people wouldn’t like them! But Erickson is the same guy who endorsed rape-exception candidate Karen Handel in a bid for U.S. Senate in the 2014 primary when there were viable 100% pro-life candidates. If Handel had won, she’d surely be standing with Ellmers, and I guess Erickson would now be calling her a liar too, just for standing by her declared values.
Erickson is also the guy who accused Georgia Right to Life of “moral vacancy” for refusing to compromise on the rape exception in the last go-round with the 20-week ban, and in fact, Erickson went on to get GRTL kicked out of National Right to Life for refusing to compromise, replacing them with his own newly-formed Georgia Life Alliance.
Right now, the other five Republican women are not being named, but once those names are released, it’ll be very interesting to see which pro-life groups and leaders endorsed them, and what their prior positions were on the rape exception before gaining the honor of those endorsements. If we want to have better legislators – ones who really are champions for defending human life, then pro-life leaders need to stop lavishing undeserving candidates with pro-life endorsements. That means no rape exceptions!
One has to wonder — how can pro-life leaders who endorsed them, and who’ve also compromised on the rape exception themselves, now be so upset? After all, this bill was introduced with a rape exception already in it, set on a “fast track” with no hearing, no debate, and allegedly no amendments to be allowed, yet there was scarcely any public objection to this rape exception from pro-life leaders and organizations. Instead of objecting to the exceptions, big pro-life organizations like National Right to Life Conference, Susan B. Anthony List and Priests for Life instantly began promoting the bill as is. There was no campaign from the pro-life movement at-large to contact Congressmen to get the rape exception out, only no-compromise organizations like Save The 1, Personhood Alliance and its affiliates, and American Life League. Children conceived in rape were summarily yanked off the 20-week rescue bus and thrown under it, while pro-life leaders tried to hide the bodies – not even informing their supporters that there’s a rape exception in the bill. Are we that negligible? And the grass-roots can’t be trusted with the truth? How could they give in so quickly and how can they now be so upset that a group of rape-exception Republican women want the impotent reporting requirement removed?
It reminds me of the old story where a guy asks a woman, “Will you get in bed with me for $1 million?” And she says “Yes!” Then he asks, “Will you get in bed with me for $50?” Now she’s indignant: “No way! What, do you think I’m some kind of whore?!” The man replies, “We’ve already established that. Now I’m just negotiating terms.” When pro-life leaders get in bed with rape-exception candidates by endorsing them and colluding with them, and when they instantly accept, enthusiastically endorse and aggressively promote a fast-tracked rape exception bill, they’ve already compromised their values. So why should they be upset when these legislators begin negotiating terms?
BIO: Rebecca Kiessling is an international pro-life speaker, writer and lawyer, having been conceived in rape and nearly aborted at two back-alley abortions, but legally protected by no-exceptions Michigan law. She’s the founder and president of Save The 1 and co-founder of Hope After Rape Conception
